OrCAD fun & games

CIS uses any ODBC compliant database for it's data. There were a few really nice things about it

1. I could map (in an external database) a schematic part to a layout footprint (which Allegro would pull in automagically when reading the netlist)
2. We could set the status of a part to new, unkown, checked, approved etc., and you could check all your parts from the Orcad menus - would come up green, yellow or red depending on part status.
3. You could select 'database part' during capture so you always used parts from the database, not the shipping orcad libs (which, because they all hide the power pins, are pretty much useless without editing in a non-trivial design)
4. It was very simple to replace a part just by highlighting and right-click (such as if I stuck the wrong diode in or something - just select the new part and off you go).

CIS is certainly a very good part of Orcad, although I'll admit there are areas it's not as good ;)

It's because of the control of used parts (and the fact one could only use approved parts if set up that way) that many places still use Orcad.

Cheers PeteS

Jim, There were BSIM3 (Level 7) models in the Polar Fab libraries that we ran thru LTspice a couple years back. The version at the time barfed on BSIM3. Mike E. fixed it on a Sunday after Hulmut S. figured out the problem. I have found that LTspice has excellent compatibility with PSpice syntax.

Hi Brad,

Essentially what CIS does is to provide a GUI-based front-end to a database (pretty much any ODBC database -- you need no customize about a dozen lines of script to connect it up to your particular database) that lets you browse and search for parts based on their hierarchical categories, values, etc. (there are many standard fields); it then selects a part from the symbol libraries you have open and automatically files in all the attributes of that part with the values from the database (part no, value, tolerance, vendor, internal part no, etc. -- whatever fields you want).

Additionally you can take a part (or a bunch of parts) that's already been placed on a schematic and "link" them to a database part, which simply looks up the part in the database (by name) and pulls in all the attributes.

The on-line CIS databases (which now seem pretty much dead) were so that you could search by, e.g., DigiKey part no. and get the part symbol & attributes pulled in.

---Joel

Joel, Okay, sounds very similar to what Altium is now doing. Can't comment on how easy it is to set up or how robust but I have been reading of a number of users setting it up successfully in the past few months and then they have helped a few others with problems/issues, possibly issues where they didn't read the available white papers/instructions on how the set-up is accomplished. You know the routine, why read anything when you can just type a quick 1 minute email?

Of course Altium has been able to import data into schematic symbols from external databases (DB3 or DB4 anyways) for many years now, I had set-up a system to do it in P99SE back in 2000. I hear that the latest is much more robust and simpler, I believe that it may also be using ODBC databases as well.

-- Sincerely, Brad Velander.